A Practice in Persistence
by Lucinda the Maid
Summary: Some things fade with time. Others go on even after the end. Fifty sentences centered around Kira Izuru and Hinamori Momo, past, present, and future.


Originally written for the livejournal community 1sentence, where I claimed the Kira/Hinamori pairing. The goal of the community is to write one and _only _one sentence centered around the two claimed characters according to fifty preset prompt words. The theme set I worked with was set beta.

I also would like to extend apologizes to any and all commas, semicolons, and hyphens involved that may have been abused while I wrote this set. Because I had to condense each theme down to one sentence, I had to get a little… _creative_ with my punctuation. In addition, be aware that spoilers for the end of the Soul Society arc abound; proceed with caution if you haven't gotten that far into the series yet. At any rate, here's hoping you enjoy this set. And if you feel so inclined, please drop a review when you're through to tell me what you thought!

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**Disclaimer:** Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite and a variety of other sources that aren't myself. This humble author is merely borrowing.

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**1. Walking:** It's been said that a walk after a hard day's work helps to clear the mind and relax the body; Kira strolls beside Hinamori, watches beads of sweat still present from that morning's training session roll lazily down from her forehead, and he can't help but think that it's not the walk itself that is calming him down. 

**2. Waltz:** Hinamori tangoed with Hollows, danced to a music of her own making, pirouetted and chassed into attack, and from the other side of the battlefield, Kira watched and was seduced by her dance.

**3. Wishes:** "We've both been recruited to the fifth squad," he told her, and Kira was knocked back by the force of a squeal let loose when Hinamori discovered that her wish had come true.

**4. Wonder:** He walks to the fourth squad everyday to bring her flowers, picked freshly just for her; when her room becomes so full of them that Unohana-taichou refuses to accept anymore and still Hinamori cannot breathe on her own, Kira must wonder whether her eyes will ever open to gaze upon the fragile blossoms.

**5. Worry:** "Kira-kun, did you spend the night with Matsumoto-san again?" she asked, waving a hand in front of the blonde's bleary eyes; "Kira-kun, I worry about you… you have no tolerance for alcohol, remember…"

**6. Whimsy: **"I think that Kira-kun would look nice with his hair grown out," Hinamori had once said to him with a shy smile; years later, she looked back on that day and recalled the comment she'd made, still surprised that he had taken up her offhanded suggestion.

**7. Waste/Wasteland:** She stood between Abarai-kun and Kira-kun, her lips parting as she gazed upon the destruction that the Huge Hollows had wracked; "So this was our first battle…" Hinamori said, trailing off; to this, Kira-kun merely closed his eyes, shielded himself from the sight of the corpses of his upperclassmen, and stated, "…it was beautiful."

**8. Whiskey and rum:** There was nothing that Renji liked better than a game of truths, partially because he could drink his ass off and have fun, but mostly because of the blackmail he'd have received by the end of the night when Kira, drunk on whiskey and rum, told him exactly _what_ he felt toward Hinamori.

**9. War:** It is during times of war that friends are brought closer together and enemies are divided even more; as Hinamori pointed Tobiume at Kira, tears running down her face in spite of herself, she felt an unseen hammer pound a wedge between herself and him with every swing of her zanpakutou, and she wondered when her closest friend had become her greatest enemy.

**10. Weddings:** "Did you hear… Kaien-fukutaichou got married… such a pretty lady too… oh, he's so handsome…" This Kira overheard from Hinamori and her group of girlfriends, who blushed and giggled at the thought of the lieutenant's recent wedding; Kira himself could only sigh, for as much as he admired Hinamori, he could never understand a girl's fuss over such a trivial ceremony.

**11. Birthday:** "Kira-kun's birthday was to… it was… today…" Hinamori stood open-mouthed in front of her friend, then proceeded to hold him tight to make up for the fact that she'd forgotten; Kira, whose arms were quickly working their way around her, wasn't quite as bothered.

**12. Blessing:** She'd stumbled across him by accident, praying at the gravestone emblazoned with his family's name; from then on, whenever he left to receive his late parents' blessings, she followed him, murmuring her own prayers and giving him a small smile when he turned to look at her.

**13. Bias:** His attraction to Hinamori, he found, was inevitable; after all, _he_ couldn't help it if he couldn't resist girls in pigtails.

**14. Burning:** The cutest thing about Hinamori, he thought, was her blush; the revealing red streaks would burn across her face, and when he leaned forward to kiss them away, he would feel her warmth blaze beautiful burns into his lips.

**15. Breathing:** His breath was so close to her face, and it scared her because she'd never been this close to a boy before; and then he closed in and she wasn't breathing at all, and Hinamori closed her eyes and discovered that she _liked_ it.

**16. Breaking:** When Aizen-taichou had been pinned to the wall, his glasses had broken, long cracks spider-webbing across the lenses to the edges of his frames; Kira noticed this, but when he heard Hinamori's scream and saw her sink to her knees in front of her former captain, he knew that his shattered glasses could never compare to how broken she must have felt.

**17. Belief:** Hitsugaya-kun had told her to not trust the third squad, and at the thought of white hair and a smile inhuman, she'd had no choice but to believe him; but the fleeting thought of _Kira-kun…_ had entered her mind, and suddenly Hinamori had no idea who to trust anymore.

**18. Balloon:** It was a feeling in her chest at first, soft and delicate and _oh so nice_, and when Kira came near her, it ballooned into something larger, something more intense, something that simultaneously brought her to her knees in thrill and carried her over the world, pausing only to rest at his feet.

**19. Balcony:** Just outside the entrance to Hinamori's quarters was an overhang that gave her a wide, sweeping view of the other squads' lodgings; over time, she'd developed a routine so that, every morning, she'd awaken, stroll outside, and then lean over the edge of her own personal balcony to peer into the third squad's area, if only to follow a tiny blonde speck with her eyes.

**20. Bane:** To Hinamori, Aizen-taichou was the driving force behind her every mood, the man who made her blush and laugh and smile and _live_; to Kira, this same person was the bane of his existence, for he could never forgive that he himself was not the one that made Hinamori's heart beat.

**21. Quiet:** Kira had always been shy, withdrawn, and even a little quiet; Hinamori, whose frailty was given off in waves from her body, was equally as reticent; but in the evening, when silence prevailed and the world made not a sound, they would find each other, sit on the roof of one of the fifth squad's buildings, twine their fingers together and support one another as they reveled in the quiet.

**22. Quirks:** Hinamori's biggest peculiarity, Kira thinks, is her tendency to impulsively change her hairstyle; being so consistent in her obsession with Aizen, one would think that she would be the same with her appearance, but she's switched back and forth between pigtails and bun so many times, it's made his head spin; "she's a girl," Abarai-kun tells him as he crosses his arms, and Kira sighs and feels the need to disagree: "No… she's just Hinamori."

**23. Question:** After the end, Hinamori clutched her stomach, felt blood run through her fingers from the still-fresh stab wound, and amid the once-pristine blankets on her bed at the recovery center, asked him, "Why…"; Kira, who remembered a perpetually smiling face and a captain he never should have trusted, frowned, lowered his head so that his hair cast a shadow over his eyes, and responded, "The same reason you did…"; and Hinamori, who fisted in her hands a letter from a man so different from Gin but _so, so similar_, nodded, for she understood his simple answer.

**24. Quarrel:** She had never been argumentative, and he had always strayed away from fistfights and scuffles; but when Tobiume met Wabisuke and tears for a taichou fallen flooded down her face, their unspoken quarrel over their loyalties to their captains flared into an all-out battle; and even as Kira struck against her, doubling the weight of her sword with his shikai, he knew that neither minded the fight at all.

**25. Quitting:** Hinamori liked to follow her dreams, and the glint of the glass on Aizen-taichou's face reminded her never to quit pursuing them; Shinigami training was long and difficult, however, and sometimes it was equally as hard to resist throwing the towel in; and yet as she fought alongside Kira-kun and Abarai-kun, smiled at the redhead and cast spells with the blonde, she knew that the memory of the fifth squad captain's smile coupled with her friends' perseverance and strength could sway her enough to make quitting an option just out of her reach.

**26. Jump:** It was a leap of faith, the jump from friends to lovers, but the sunset was so gorgeous and the dying rays of light so comforting… and thus, from atop a hill that faced northeast, the two held hands and leapt away from what they knew, and while the other side of the summit was cold and unfamiliar, they could huddle close for warmth and survive… for this was a jump they had taken together, as once-friends and now-lovers.

**27. Jester:** "Kira-kun is so silly," Hinamori said, and for some reason, that made Izuru smile; but when Renji interjected with, "Hah, you think he's silly now, wait 'til you see him when he's drunk!" he felt far more foolish than he had five seconds ago.

**28. Jousting:** Their wooden practice swords met, and he murmured, "Don't think that I'm going to go easy on you just because you're a girl…"; pigtails flying in a passing breeze, Hinamori pushed Kira away and promptly charged at him with her weapon pointed straight at his stomach; even in the heat of battle, Kira had to sigh at how vulnerable this attack had left her and said, "Though seeing as you've obviously taken swordsmanship lessons from Abarai-kun, I might have to reconsider easing up…"

**29. Jewel:** Long after the battle against Aizen and Gin had been fought and won, Kira had finally learned just what the hougyoku was; as he looked at Hinamori, who was suspended in the past by a scar that remained open, and as he pondered the jewel that had shaped her future, he couldn't bring himself to believe that such a small trinket could have brought about such devastating, contradictory effects.

**30. Just:** Having grown up in one of the poorer districts of Rukongai, Hinamori had never needed much to survive; one look from Kira confirmed this, for with him at her side, she knew that she had just enough to do so.

**31. Smirk:** "What's that face for?" Kira asked, a part of him panicking at the mere sight of Abarai-kun's smirk; the red-haired boy grunted and replied, "_My_ face?… you shoulda seen yours when you were watching Hinamori practice her kidô… so I think I should be the one asking—" (he paused to smirk once again, this time at the blush that was creeping its way up Kira's cheeks) "—what's up with _your_ face?"

**32. Sorrow:** Like a discarded wad of paper, she'd crumpled and fallen, betrayed and broken and hurt and _cold_; looking back, Hinamori could never fathom how she'd been tossed aside so easily, been so dense so as to not see through her former captain's façade… and so she folds her arms into her stomach now and _cries_, and she falls forward again into forever… but this time, Kira is there to catch her because he can understand her, and when she hits his forearms and feels them slide to move around her, something warm catches in her heart, and that is enough to evaporate her tears.

**33. Stupidity:** Shuuhei ground his teeth and covered his ears, trying his best to block out the sound of Hinamori and Matsumoto's combined peals of laughter; around the clench in his jaw, he spoke, raising his voice enough so that the blonde on the other side of the room could hear him: "_Kira_… bringing Hinamori-san to one of our drinking parties was _not_ – " (he took this moment to grimace as Matsumoto loudly suggested a game of strip-drinking and Momo agreed to it at an even greater volume) " – a good idea."

**34. Serenade:** "You can stop singing now, Kira-kun," Hinamori called from the doorframe of her room, cradling her head in her hands in such a way that she could easily reach her fingers upward to plug her ears, "I can already tell that you're drunk."

**35. Sarcasm:** "Yes, Kira-kun, you're going to fail the exams and never get a seat in the Gotei 13, in spite of the fact that you constantly top the cla… no, Kira-kun, stop hitting your head against the wall!"

**36. Sordid:** "I'm a monster," he tells her, tilting her face up to his and feeling so dirty from that one simple movement, "I hurt you, and you should never forgive me for that…"; but she closes the distance between them still, unafraid of his self-proclaimed unworthiness, and he thumbs away the tears in her eyes and feels himself becoming clean once more.

**37. Soliloquy:** "I will protect her," he said, voice echoing in the near-empty training area, words falling from his lips in time with Wabisuke's blows; again and again he said it, faster, louder, with more conviction, and his strikes got deeper_harder_quicker_stronger_; the image of her face burned in his memory, and now, more than anything else, he knew that she needed someone who wouldn't desert her; and so he chanted the words over and over, determined to become that person, and energy built in his core_head_arms_sword_… and then he spoke a new word: "Bankai."

**38. Sojourn:** Life is hectic during the months before The War, but when he enters the recovery center after a hard day's work and slips into her room to watch her sleep, he can't help but let calm overtake him, and he thinks that all of the hustle-bustle of the day is worth it for these few simple moments he can spend at her bedside.

**39. Share:** When Rukia tagged along on a class trip to the human realm, there became one too few lunch boxes to go around; Kira took note of Hinamori's empty hands and empty stomach, and, swallowing the lump of nervousness in his throat, he made his way over to her, ready to offer that they share.

**40. Solitary:** It is The End, and Kira drinks sake, whiskey, whatever he can get his trembling hands on; he drinks in an empty room to remind himself that Ichimaru-taichou deserted him (that he was destined to be by himself) and also to remember that he helped aid the man who abandoned _her_ (so he can recall that he brought about loneliness as well); Kira drinks himself into a depression, collects memories of him and him and _her_ in his battered, barely-beating heart, and he presses a bottle to his lips to remember that he's drinking _alone_.

**41. Nowhere:** It hurt Kira's heart to discover that life without Gin was like wandering down a road to nowhere; the emptiness the journey left in its wake pierced him all the way through like Kyouka Suigetsu had Hinamori, and he wanted to scream and cry and run away… but his hands were clenched firmly to the blankets of Hinamori's hospital bed, and though she hadn't regained all of her strength yet, she reached out to brush her fingertips against his knuckles; and suddenly, something terrible in his heart receded, because while he meandered the paths of his soul without a destination, there was a connection now, between his skin and that of a friend's, that created a new road he knew he had to walk.

**42. Neutral: **Kira placed his loyalties to Ichimaru above all else, and yet he could not deny the hand that grasped the sword currently pointed at his throat; with a mixture of guilt and defiance, he stared into the clouded face of Hinamori Momo, his friend, and now, if he chose to side with his captain, his most recent victim; at the moment, he stood in limbo, caught between his ties to his taichou and his respect for his comrade… but remaining neutral in the heat of battle was an impossibility, for when Tobiume went flying for Gin's head, Kira was right before it, stopping her attack and simultaneously releasing his amity with her to the wind.

**43. Nuance:** "Oy, Kira, d'you know that when you're around Hinamori, your voice goes higher?"; Izuru blushed and choked on his onigiri, planning to say something to Renji, although Momo beat him to the punch: "Um, ah… Abarai-kun… I-I'm sure it means nothing!"; quickly enough, however, the redhead leveled her with a glare and shot back, "_Your_ voice just got higher too…"

**44. Near:** He comes to her room everyday, sits near her bed and engages her in awkward conversation, and when he pulls up a chair and goes to her side, Hinamori wants to cry; what did she do, she wonders, to deserve a friend like him, a person that will come to see her _everyday_, support her messily, awkwardly, and never abandon her… the fact that he stays, near, with her, is enough to make her want to cry into him, to forget everything she's known and start again, in a world without desertion, without pain… and though she'll never know it, Kira thinks that exact same thing, that he doesn't want to be abandoned, and when she learns to walk again and _she's_ the one visiting his room, he knows that in this little world that only they reside in, there's no such thing as being alone: there is only nearness and shy, comfortable awkwardness, and it is more than enough for them both.

**45. Natural:** "I don't want you to feel guilty about what you did," she told him, sliding her hand under his and shifting so she could feel his gasp warm her neck, "Neither of us were thinking clearly when we fought… and besides… I _know_ you're naturally a good person, and that you'll never do those things again."

**46. Horizon:** The setting sun was the color of his hair, its scattered rays the bends of his fingers, and its inherent warmth reminded her of his rare but beautiful smiles; Hinamori watched the sun dip down beneath the horizon and felt something flutter in her heart; she would never look at a sunset in the same way again.

**47. Valiant:** She smiled at him from behind her tears, told him with confidence, "I am getting better…"; but Kira was not blind, for he could see that even a month after Aizen had betrayed them all, the fifth squad captain's silhouette remained glistening in the pristine drops that fell from her eyes.

**48. Virtuous:** Kira's high-class upbringing dictated that he be virtuous, and he used this trait to pioneer him through life; it was especially effective for dealing with Hinamori, for, he'd soon learned, her own rugged lifestyle drew her to only the politest of boys – him.

**49. Victory:** She's already heard the news by the time he comes to tell her: "Aizen's been defeated; we've won, Hinamori-kun, we've won…"; she smiles, though something inside her still aches for her old captain, and she takes ahold of Kira's outstretched hand and revels in the warm, comforting smile on his face… and he pulls her from her bed and she falls swiftly into his arms, thinking that even though a part of her is still left in the past, she's won and _they've_ won, and maybe if she learns to forget and then to forgive, she can build herself a future with Kira at her side… and this moment in his arms… it's the first brick that she's laid.

**50. Defeat:** "Wah, I've won!... now do it, Kira…"; even taking into account her inebriated state, Rangiku eyed the blonde a little too eagerly for his own tastes; Kira's gaze itself shifted over to the sober but stuttering fifth squad lieutenant, whose face, he noticed, was steadily reddening; she mumbled, "Well… you yourself told me never to challenge Matsumoto-san to a drinking game…" and a strangled, defeated sound emerged from his throat; "er… if you say so…"; and under the expectant (dear Lord…) stares of two women, Kira sighed, defeated, and shrugged off his clothes.


End file.
